In Lahore, a large number of activists and workers gathered to pay tribute to the revolutionary struggle and contributions of Comrade Manssor Saeed, a senior communist leader and intellectual, who has recently passed away on May 24, 2010. He took an active part in the politics of the Left and cultural activism all his life. He joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1964, before moving to Pakistan in 1970 to marry his cousin who was a member of Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP). He then joined the CPP, later in 1975, and remained an active member of the party as the In-charge of International Department, In-charge of Ideological Section, and Member of Central Committee and Central Secretariat till his death.

The reference was organized by the CPP and Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party (CMKP) at the Dorab Patel Auditorium, HRCP which was filled with hundreds of people, holding red flags. It was presided by Comrade Imdad Qazi, leader CPP and Comrade Taimur Rahman, Secretary General CMKP. Special guests inluded IA Rahman, Jamil Umar, Muneeza Hashmi and Sania Saeed, who is the daughter of Comrade Mansoor Saeed (late) and is known as a progressive actoress.

The event started with a group of children singing the Communist Internationale. According to Sania Saeed, “these children reminded me of my revolutionary childhood and I feel honored that my father, Comrade Mansoor Saeed, educated me ideologically.”

Comrade Imdad Qazi said that small emerging leftist groups are the element of hope in Pakistan. If they follow people like Mansoor Saeed, they would play a significant role in the Socialist struggle.

Comrade Taimur Rahman highlighted Mansoor Saeed’s literary and theatrical contributions. He said, that, we shall follow the revolutionary path of Comrade Mansoor Saeed through art and culture, who initiated the progressive theater in Pakistan with his Theater Group Dastak. He said, that our party will start some study circles based on Mansoor’s writings. Comrade Taimur Rahman also performed with his band Laal and sang songs dedicated to the cause of working-class.

Other speakers emphasized their personal and ideological affiliation with Comrade Mansoor Saeed and said that he will be remembered with great respect in the history of class-struggle in Pakistan.

At the end, Laal Theater performed and workers performed a play ‘Machine’. It was highly appreciated by the audiences. The event was closed by the performance of Comrade Naseer, member CMKP Hashtnagar, who sang Faiz’s poetry and progressive Pashto song.

Comrade Tamiur Rahman said, in spite of the tragic loss of our beloved comrade Mansoor Saeed, we have celebrated today’s gathering with hope of struggle leading towards the Socialist revolution.

Scion of an aristocratic family of Hyderabad, Deccan, Hasan Nasir was a student at the Cambridge University in England, when he came under the influence of the communist party, which had a vibrant presence in the academia of UK during the post WW II period.

According to a senior friend, he was on his way to England, when his steamship stopped in Karachi. He went on shore to meet progressive friends, who persuaded him to stay in Karachi.

According to party sources, he was sent by the CPI as assistant to Sajjad Zaheer, who took over as the secretary general of the party in Pakistan.

The CPP was implicated in in the so called Pindi conspiracy case of 1951. besides army, navy and air force officers, Sajjad Zaheer, Faiz Sahib, Hasan Nasir and a few journalists were arrested. Faiz sahib wrote some of his best poetry in Hyderabad Sind jail.

The tussle between the elected institutions of Pakistan and the undemocratic, forces of obscurantism and regression has gained greater momentum causing chaos and & uncertainty, which has unfolded in the recent boondoggle of the Army’s General Head Quarter (GHQ) and civilian presidency, forcing the civilian administration to refrain from public welfare and democratic dispensations.

Similarly the differences between the civilian administration of the US President Mr. Obama Hussein and the military complex of PANTAGON, is now a day light matter.

The sheer lack of acumen, in addition to political infancy on the part of the civilian government of Pakistan, has offered an excellent opportunity for the undemocratic forces of medievalism, and fundamentalism to hatch overt and covert ploys, to uproot the democratically elected infrastructure.
The present democratic political government bodies, certainly came into being as result of the out of way reaction shown by the people of Sindh province over the then heinous assassination of the twice former prime minister of Pakistan Ms. Benazir Bhutto at the hands of described above forces of infinite evil.

These undemocratic obscurantism forces have now conceived to launch a stalemating blow on the government, by ruse engineered anti govt echoes from sindh, so as to replicate that, the people of Sindh have now withdrawn their support and mandate for the elected government as incompetent and clumsy in the matters of governance. This press statement was issued by comrade Imdad Qazi, a central spokesperson of the Communist Party of Pakistan at the conclusion of the central secretariat meeting at the party’s central secretariat office at, Nasim Nagar -111/ D, Hydrabad .

Comrade Qazi, further disclosed, that the central leadership of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N)has also gone split away into two poles, as the meeting of Army chief General Kyani, with Ch. Nisar and Shahbaz Sharif indicates their slip towards the undemocratic antagonistic camp, where the other half, pretends to hold the present political dispensation intact seeking the role of legitimate parliamentary opposition .

Comrade Qazi, hence forth highlighted that, the unfortunate sheer indifferent attitude of the Pakistan peoples party’s govt about the urgent public issues, like its predecessors PML-Q has shocked the people, which will end up in total devastation and regress of the infantile democratic infrastructures . With this, CPP demands the PPP govt, to address the people’s needs, lower the prices for sugar, flour, edible oil, utility and petroleum products as the present sky rocketing inflationary and devaluation of the national currency has broken the purchasing back bone of the common people, so its better the govt halt dragging the people towards beggary and create working, job opportunities in order to reinstate the people’s trust in the democratic dispensations.

The following message was posted by the Hyderabad District Committee of the Communist Party of Pakistan:

During past two weeks (July 30 to August 09, 2009), various events including hunger strikes, demonstrations, rallies, and seminars, etc., were organized in many parts of the Sindh province to mark the death anniversary of Comrade Nazeer Abbasi, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP), who was brutally tortured to death in clandestine arrest by bullies of the then Major Imtiaz Billa (now Brig. (Rtd) Imtiaz Billa), a handpicked dog of the US-patronized Pakistani military establishment.

The almost unanimous demand made during these events by different political and civil society formations was the resumption of legal proceedings of Nazeer Abbasi’s murder case and death sentence to be awarded to the perpetrators of this heinous crime. However, a few restricted themselves to just expounding Nazeer’s personal characteristics and the features of his political beliefs and acts without drawing any lessons for today’s and future political strategy in line with Nazeer’s political ideology and struggle based on it.

Some claiming themselves to be heir to Nazeer’s legacy termed him as wholly and solely a “Nationalist”. Some others regarded him as a “Democrat and believer in Human Rights”. Still some others criticized Nazeer’s party for being negligent in taking care of his family after his martyrdom. And his CPP comrades, like always, clearly brought to fore the fact that Nazeer was a true blue Communist follower of the principles of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

Was Nazeer a “Nationalist”?

In an event of Nazeer’s death anniversary held by a local Sindh nationalist faction on August 9, 2009, a jail mate of Nazeer claimed during his cell phone address on the occasion that Nazeer was a nationalist and this was precisely why he was an internationalist! The same baseless assertion also reverberated in some other events. Some individuals who had met Nazeer once or twice testified that Nazeer was a nationalist whereas some other acquaintances differed and said he was not at all a nationalist and kept nationalists as much away from him as they did him.